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Friday, March 20, 2015

A Review of Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now

I first heard of Meg Rosoff through Writer Unboxed, where
she is a contributor, and had the privilege of taking one of her classes at the
UnConference in Salem this past November. I am now kicking myself that I did
not have How I Live Now with me at the time, so I could have had it signed. I
don’t read a lot of YA, and so perhaps I can be forgiven for having missed this
gem, published back in 2004 and since made into a movie of the same name.

Synopsis of How I Live Now (from the book jacket)

Fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy is sent to live in the
English countryside with cousins she’s never even met. When England is attacked
and occupied by an unnamed enemy, the cousins find themselves on their own.
Power fails, systems fail. As they grow more isolated, the farm becomes a kind
of Eden, with no rules. Until the war arrives in their midst.

Daisy’s is a war story, a survival story, a love story—all
told in the voice of a subversive and witty teenager. This book crackles with
anxiety and with lust. It’s a stunning and unforgettable first novel that
captures the essence of the age of terrorism: how we live now.

About Meg Rosoff:

Meg Rosoff is an American writer based in London. How I Live
Now, her first novel, won the Guardian Prize, the Printz Award, and the
Branford Boase Award. The novel was made into a motion picture, which released
in 2013 starring Saoirse Ronan, Subsequent novels include Just in Case, What I
Was, The Bride’s Farewell and Picture Me Gone.

My Review:

It is pretty much impossible to categorize this novel.

It’s part utopian and part dystopian.

It’s a war story that takes place on the fringes of the war,
at least until the scene that left me as shell-shocked as poor Daisy and Piper.
This was soon followed by something exponentially worse.

The love story should be disturbing or, at the very least,
off-putting, yet it somehow isn't. Not in that context. Not in that world.

How I Live Now is only 194 pages yet it felt much meatier
because Daisy’s voice forced a slow read with no skimming allowed. It is one of
the most original stories I've read in years, and also one of the most timely
and unsettling. I wouldn't hand it to my thirteen-year-old, but when she’s
fifteen I may well be shoving it at her.

It made me examine how vulnerable MY world is, how easily it
could crumble into chaos. How many novels can do that?